Carol Emshwiller - "The Mount"

"Poetic and intense, The Mount is a deceptively simple story about humans revolting against a group of alien conquerers who love humanity - as pets they can ride on."

Although simple, "The Mount" shouldn't be confused with just another book for children. Nor it's just another "us vs. them" alien invasion story. As Kim Stanley Robinson (a Hugo Award winning author of the Mars Trilogy) writes about it: "We are all Mounts and so should read this book like an instruction manual that could help save our lives." It's an eye-opening (for those whose eyes are still tightly closed) tale of human bondage and why some people choose to give away their freedom in favor of living a comfortable life inside a solipsistic bubble of desire for material goods and fame/success. "Kindness is the best policy, we love you" say Hoots, the aliens that conquered Earth and enslaved humanity so cunningly that people got used to it and even began to enjoy it. "Kindness is the best policy - as long as it's behind the wires." Is it just the Stockholm syndrome or do we, as mankind, secretly wish to, in the words of Erich Fromm, escape from freedom?